Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s)

"The choice for our people, Mr. President, is between
statehood and extermination."

Chaim Weizmann
president of Jewish Agency for Palestine
to President Harry S. Truman,
April 9, 1948

The creation of a Jewish state in Palestine was one of the most divisive
issues of the Truman administration. On November 29, 1947, the United
Nations agreed that Palestine, which had been a British mandate since
1922, would be divided into two new states: one Jewish, one Arab. The
British would withdraw on May 14, 1948, when this partition plan would
take effect.

As the deadline approached, U.S. policy on this question appeared to be
in disarray. President Truman secretly assured the Jewish Agency for Palestine
of U.S. support for the plan, while the State Department announced support
of an alternative plan. As the violence between Jews and Arabs in Palestine
escalated and as the British prepared to withdraw, President Truman, subjected
to intense pressures, made his choice. On May 14, 1948, just 11 minutes
after the State of Israel was proclaimed in Tel Aviv, President Truman
released a statement recognizing the new Jewish state.

The statement recognizing the State of Israel is at the Harry S. Truman
Library in Independence, Missouri.

The U.S. announces recognition of the
State of Israel in a statement released, May 14, 1948.

"There are some who say that Communism is the wave of
the future. Let them come to Berlin."

President John F. Kennedy
Berlin, Germany
June 26, 1963

The cold war is the term for the rivalry between the two blocs of contending
states that emerged following World War II. It was a series of confrontations
and tests of wills between the non-Communist states, led by the United
States and Great Britain, and the Communist bloc, led by the Soviet Union,
that lasted 45 years, and at one point, drew the world to the brink of
nuclear war.

In August 1961 the Soviets erected the Berlin Wall to stop the mass exodus
of people fleeing Soviet East Berlin for West Berlin and the non-Communist
world. The wall was a mass of concrete, barbed wire, and stone that cut
into the heart of the city, separating families and friends. For 28 years,
it stood as a grim symbol of the gulf between the Communist East and the
non-Communist West. In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, signalling the end of
the cold war.

"The President held an interplanetary conversation with
Apollo 11 Astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin on the
Moon."

President Richard Nixon's Daily Diary
July 20, 1969

In the late 1950s the United States watched the Soviet Union take the lead
in the rapidly escalating space race. The Soviet lead was both embarrassing
and menacing to a nation that prided itself on technological know-how.
On May 25, 1961, when President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation
to landing a man on the Moon before the end of the decade, he struck a
responsive chord with the American people.

The Apollo program, created to meet the goal of landing men on the Moon,
enlisted 20,000 companies, hundreds of thousands of individuals, and some
25.5 billion dollars. On July 20, 1969, astronauts of the Apollo 11 mission
became the first humans to set foot on the Moon. The Moon landing was
a stunning achievement that commanded world attention.